Peekskill, NY bakery specializes in small batch treats and creating community for people of color

Auzerais Bellamy is the founder and CEO of Blondery, a Peekskill, NY-based bakery offering small batch blondies, cakes, and cookies. The business combines Bellamy’s passion for creating gourmet pastry with a commitment to giving back to her community and mentoring young chefs.

Her entrepreneurial journey started with a recipe for pecan and salted caramel blondies, inspired by pecan praline candies she loved as a child. It was fueled by a dream of running her own business. Today, she offers eight core flavors of blondies as well as seasonal specialties such as a Mother’s Day collection of exotic flavors like raspberry rose, elderflower, and fresh orange and champagne.

Along the way, she studied at renowned culinary arts school Johnson & Wales, and worked in several well-known restaurants, including Michelin Star Chef Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery. While she succeeded in all of these domains, it wasn’t always easy.

"A lack of representation and inclusion for women of color throughout the restaurant industry meant fewer growth opportunities for me and people like me,” she says. “I want to help people who are marginalized within the food industry to do something they love and earn a livable wage."

In addition to attaining her entrepreneurial dream, Bellamy has found a way to support aspiring chefs and provide a community space where children can learn. “It’s my proudest achievement,” she says.

Blondery is a winner of a 2023 Citizens Small Business Community Champion Award, which recognizes entrepreneurs who have a strong business mission and are committed to improving their community.

Bellamy recently discussed how she built her business, the importance of finding a supportive community, and why it’s important to create opportunities for aspiring chefs and women of color in the culinary world.

Blondery’s business and geographic journey has not unfolded the way Bellamy planned, but it has been rewarding and fueled by community support. Blondery first started selling blondies at pop-up shops near Brooklyn, NY in 2018 and really took off in 2020, growing 200% in one year.

During this high-growth period the bakery faced the challenges all culinary businesses have been dealing with in the last few years. Shortages of everything from flour and sugar to cream cheese and baking powder forced them to work hard to find high-quality ingredients. “My chefs and I will often hit the pavement ourselves to track down what we need at different restaurant supply stores,” she says. “It has been a challenge to keep up with shortages and drastic price increases on things like eggs, but we roll with the punches.”

As prices on key ingredients have risen, the gourmet bakery’s healthy profit margin has enabled it to maintain profitability without raising prices. That is about to change. Continually rising shipping costs are forcing Bellamy to raise prices. But, she is not worried.

“Our core customers are women between the ages of 35 and 65 who are doing well for themselves and appreciate the value of what we offer,” says Bellamy. “We get repeat business because we are hand producing a quality product and you can taste the difference.”

The bulk of Blondery’s revenues come through online sales of blondies, cookies, and cakes to both individuals and corporate customers. The brick-and-mortar store — which is open three days a week and accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of sales — wasn’t initially in her plans at all. A flood in her prior Brooklyn, NY location caused her to relocate to what she thought would be a temporary space in Peekskill. The Peekskill community was excited to have the bakery in town, and the mayor herself helped Bellamy connect with a developer and landlord to find the new location. It was on the city’s Main Street and the only requirement was that Blondery run a retail presence to add another storefront to the city’s downtown. A retail operation was not in Blondery’s plan, but it has been a very positive step for the company and had a significant impact for Peekskill’s downtown presence.

“The community has been so supportive — there’s a lot of development happening in Peekskill and we’re very excited to be here,” says Bellamy, who is planning to increase the shop’s hours to five days a week and add on a coffee bar with the $10K Citizens Small Business Community Champion Award. “Even though we weren’t planning to have a retail location, I’m glad we do now because it is supporting my company and community goals.”

Bottom line: Not everything will go as expected as your company expands and develops. Be willing to adjust to change and seize opportunities as your market and business circumstances change. To become more resilient, keep in mind that obstacles or situations that cause you to shift plans may ultimately lead to better opportunities.

Bellamy has worked very hard to get to this point and she credits mentors and community support with making it all possible. This experience drives her commitment to giving back.

Bellamy is committed to giving back to the community she has created within Blondery, and the one she is now part of in New York’s Hudson Valley. With the Citizens Small Business Community Champion Award funds, she plans to launch a summer camp to help teach children and young adults in Peekskill how to cook and bake.

“We want to have programs for different age groups and teach them basic kitchen skills, to give them skills they can use to be ready for a part-time job,” she says. “There are a lot of people who look like me in this community and I wanted to make sure that kids here had a place to come and learn.”

She also wants to encourage learning within her own staff at Blondery, and instills in them the Japanese business philosophy of Kaizen — embracing change for continuous improvement — that shapes her operating philosophy. To that end, she has been taking the team on local “field trips” to places like farms and food distributors. This summer, the scope of that learning will expand with a two-week learning trip to Japan and Korea.

“I think that type of investment in your team really says something,” says Bellamy. “It shows you believe in them and it is something they will remember and take with them in their careers, even if they go on to work somewhere else.”

Having a strong team has been critical in Blondery’s growth. “I know that my personal recipes and style are the ‘secret sauce’ for our success,” she says. “But finding a talented team I trust let me fire myself from some of the day-to-day work and focus on the strategic side of the business.”

A willingness to nurture talent stems from the positive influence Bellamy felt from her own mentors, such as Sprinkles cupcakes founder Candace Nelson and Fairytale Brownies owner Eileen Joy Spitalny. “Candace was really good at helping me identify funding opportunities, and Eileen is a seasoned veteran who shared so much knowledge with me,” says Bellamy.

Looking to Blondery’s future, Bellamy would like to grow the Peekskill retail store’s offerings to include a coffee bar, additional pastries such as its new line of cookies baked fresh daily, and an ice cream cart via a partnership with Harlem-based Sugar Hill Creamery. She would also like to expand internationally, potentially to a city like Dubai that has the shipping infrastructure in place to support her e-commerce business model.

Bottom line: Connect with both your personal and professional community. Look for mentors who are experienced in your business to help you identify ways to improve and grow your business. When you are able, pay it forward to the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Blondery saw a big boost in sales during the pandemic due to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which encouraged consumers to seek out and patronize businesses owned by people of color. While the cultural shift to support black- and brown-owned small businesses was encouraging, Bellamy knew she needed to think carefully about how to manage sustained growth.

“I looked around and thought ‘okay, we’re making a lot of money now, particularly from things like corporate gifting, but how do I make sure I can manage this pace or a change in our level of revenue,” she says. “Many of our peers who overscaled to meet temporary demand went out of business. I knew we needed to be smart about our expansion.”

A line of credit helped Blondery grow as needed to maintain cash flow during slower periods and have funds when she needed to invest in growth when business was booming. Last year, the bakery also received a $20,000 award from the Fearless Fund, a grant program dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs of color.

When 2021 brought a significant drop in corporate sales, the company’s funding helped keep things operating smoothly until sales rebounded.

"Blondery’s corporate sales were 500% lower in 2022 than in 2020,” Bellamy says. “But we had financing, media attention, and lots of luck, which kept us going. Many people who received our products as gifts became repeat customers and we got a lot of good press out of all the attention.”

That media coverage — including a recent profile on CBS Mornings — and word of mouth have been Blondery’s most successful marketing tactics. Many new customers also find the bakery on social media, where Bellamy posts regular updates about Blondery’s products and activities.

“We’ve significantly grown our following on Instagram, where I chronicle everything that is happening with the business,” she says. “Our long-time supporters have seen us go from a startup that sold our blondies in plastic wrap to the luxurious black gift boxes we use today. They really appreciate our evolution.”

Bottom line: Take advantage of chances to grow and raise visibility for your business, but take steps to avoid overextending. Financing such as a line of credit can provide the funds you need to grow or pay bills during a slow cash flow period. With this financial flexibility, you can manage the ups and downs that are typical to many company’s growth trajectories and be ready to seize opportunities as they arise.

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